1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermediate transfer member and an image forming apparatus having the intermediate transfer member.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrophotographic image forming apparatuses carry out, for example, developing latent images formed on a photoconductor by a toner, making the obtained toner images to be temporarily held on an endless belt-shape intermediate transfer member, and transferring the toner images on the intermediate transfer member onto a recording material such as paper. As the shape of the intermediate transfer member, for example, an endless belt (intermediate transfer belt) is known (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-024898).
An intermediate transfer belt described in PTL 1 has a resin-made base material layer, and an elastic layer disposed on the surface of the base material layer. The elastic layer is constituted of an organic-inorganic hybrid material obtained by mixing a radically polymerizable monomer with an inorganic fine particle, and irradiating and polymerizing the radically polymerizable monomer with actinic radiation. Since the elastic layer of the intermediate transfer belt described in PTL 1 can thus be formed by irradiation with actinic radiation, it can be manufactured inexpensively.
Further, the intermediate transfer belt described in PTL 1 is stretched by a plurality of rollers in an image forming apparatus. Further, the intermediate transfer belt described in PTL 1 runs in one direction on an endless track by the rotation-drive of the rollers at the time of forming images.
Since the flexibility of the elastic layer is low in the intermediate transfer belt described in PTL 1, however, there is a problem in which cracks occur due to deformation when the intermediate transfer belt runs on the endless track at the time of forming images. It is thus difficult to simultaneously satisfy both the reduction of manufacture costs and the durability of the intermediate transfer belt.